She wasn’t known for observing details of ceremony and ritual,andhalfthecongregation(themediahalf)werehoping for her to slip up somewhere and give them some good footage. She didn’t, though. She took the service impeccably.
The choir was singing the evening’s first psalm. She recognised the words from other Evensongs at other churches. The New Anglicans had regular Evensongs. She’d seen to that after the one she attended at Rochester Cathedral five years ago. She remembered meeting Michael Taber there. A nice man, and also very smart. She’d seen him only a few days earlier on her banks of screens, when Rochester Cathedral was occupied.
For he shall deliver thee from the snare of the hunter.
He shall defend thee under his wings,
And thou shalt be safe…
October had turned cold and grey. No copper evening sunlight. A biting wind, a choppy pewter sea. The effect of the cold evening light on the Cathedral’s white and silver interior, the plain pale wood, the altar with its plain silver cross on which no figure was nailed, was to turn it colder.
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace...
The words of the Nunc Dimittis always sounded like they should be the closing words, but they weren’t; there were some responses and collects, and then a brief silence during which the noises from Brighton’s foreshore could be dimly heard as she walked up to deliver her sermon. The New Anglicans didn’t do pulpits; she simply stood, a small figure in a dark red velvet dress, in the space before the altar where Anwar had fought Bayard and Proskar and six others, and where she’d ridiculed him. And where he’d met her on October 6. She spoke without notes.
“These last few days, I’ve found an unexpected companion. Someone who’s shown me some unexpected things. This companion told me recently I should hate our enemies less and understand them more.”
Anwar felt a thrill go through him.
“I was walking along the seafront, past those arches between here and the Palace Pier, and past some arcades with games. There was one where things popped up and you had to knock them down with a rubber mallet, only for others to pop up, also to be knocked down. My companion asked ‘Remind you of fundamentalists?’”
There was a faint ripple of laughter in the congregation.
“Yes, that’s how I should have reacted, but I didn’t. I went into a rant about fundamentalists everywhere. Filth, I called them, and scum. ‘I hate their beliefs,’ I said, ‘more than I love mine.’ My companion said, ‘If you hated them less and understood them more, maybe even more people would support you. Including some of them.’”
She looked around the Cathedral. The sounds of the Brighton foreshore and the gulls and the sea, which had been waiting outside for just such a moment, crept into the Cathedral as she stopped speaking.
She knew exactly where Anwar was sitting and carefully avoided looking in his direction when she went on. “That was important for me. More important than my companion suspected. It’s come back to me several times since. And for several different reasons, some of which I’ll share with you this evening.”
But only some, Anwar silently prayed, and nothing which gives any clues about me.
“I’ve seen injustice and suffering and it should make me compassionate, but it doesn’t. It makes me furious. My first instinct isn’t to comfort the victims but to strike at the perpetrators. I’m an Archbishop, but compassion doesn’t come easily to me. Hatred comes easier.
“Which brings me to our enemies. You know what I call them. Batoth’Daa: the Back to the Dark Ages Alliance. I hated all of them, leaders and followers; followers because they’re weak and stupid, leaders because they make use of weakness and stupidity. But my companion’s remark made me look again at the followers.
“So to everyone who’s ever been duped or brainwashed or bullied into these ghastly fundamentalist cults, we’ll offer something new: an Outreach Foundation. It’ll be like everything else we do, businesslike and properly funded. And it’ll offer something better. Dignity. Self-esteem. Purpose. Not superstition and guilt and blind obedience–they can get those from any of our competitors.
“But if they don’t take it, then they’ll have what I still offer their leaders: my hatred.”
There was a murmur around the Cathedral. She’d said it with relish.
“Yes, you heard me. Hatred. We can’t love everyone. We can’t make heaven on earth. We can’t make everything perfect, but we can make some things better.”
She sounds so much like Rafiq, Anwar thought. Why haven’t they ever got into bed, either politically or literally?
“And we must make them better, because we may be all there is. We exploit space, but we’ve stopped exploring it. Is it because we think that nothing’s out there? We’ve turned inwards. Maybe there really is nothing except us. And God.”
This is new. They’ve never heard her say things like this. Where’s she going?
“Maybe we really are alone as a species. Often enough we’re alone as individuals. Think about our relationships: the line where an individual ends and a couple begins. A secret can mark that line. If one half has a secret they can’t share, maybe they should never become a couple. Maybe it would be better if they both stayed alone.”
There was a puzzled murmur from the congregation, and she didn’t elaborate. But for Anwar, it struck a chord. A cold and sickening one. He knew exactly what she meant. He’d said it to her himself, when she almost offered him something real and he rejected it. Not only rejected it, but laughed it into nonexistence. What have I done?
And later, when she gave him that book, he’d sensed she was again moving in and he’d felt a copper tang of fear. He felt it now, but a different fear: the fear that he was wrong. What have I done?
“Stayed alone,” she repeated softly, as if talking to herself. “Individual identity. It should be the last line, the one never crossed. The place where the soul lives. But I’ve seen it invaded…”
Even Anwar didn’t understand that reference. Maybe he wasn’t the only one here to whom she was addressing cryptic remarks.
She shook her head violently, as if to clear it.
“Our society is capable of great things. Technology hasn’t cured all our problems, but it has solved the food and fuel shortages that people feared fifty years ago would bury us. And yet, there’s always the thread of selfishness and selfobsession. While we work to solve the remaining problems, like the water rights that are why the UN is coming here, we see everywhere, on every screen, advertisements showing people putting things in their mouths.”
Again, a surprised murmur. Again, she didn’t elaborate. And again, Anwar was the only person in the Cathedral who knew what she meant.
Anwar, when he was Rashad, was fascinated by advertisements. His classmates talked about their favourite programmes, but he preferred the advertisements. An unconscious commentary on society. Have you ever thought, he asked repeatedly, how many of them show people putting things in their mouths? Burgers, chocolate, pies, lividly-coloured drinks? People putting things in their mouths: a logo for our society. His classmates chewed their burgers and stared at him, open-mouthed and uncomprehending.